Dora Maar

Henriette Theodora Markovitch alias Dora Maar (December 22 1907 – July 16 1997) was a French photographer and painter, best known for being a lover and muse of Pablo Picasso.

Related Topics:
December 22 - 1907 - July 16 - 1997 - Photographer - Painter - Pablo Picasso

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She was born in Tours, Western France, on December 22, 1907. She died 89 years of age in Paris on July 16, 1997. Her father was of Yugoslavian origin, her mother was born in the Tourraine, France. Dora grew up in Argentina.

Related Topics:
Tours - France - December 22 - 1907 - Paris - July 16 - 1997 - Yugoslavia - Argentina

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She was famous as photographer, and also was a painter herself, before she met Picasso. She made herself better known in the world with her photographs of the successive stages of the completion of Guernica that Picasso painted in his workshop of the rue des Grands Augustins, and other photos of Picasso. Together she and Picasso studied printing with Man Ray.

Related Topics:
Picasso - Guernica - Man Ray

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Picasso met her in January 1936 (when he was 54 years old) at the terrace of the Café Les Deux Magots in Saint-Germain-des-Prés, Paris. He was attracted by her beauty and self mutilation (cutting her fingers and the table - he got her bloody gloves and exhibited them on a shelf in his appartment). The famous poet Paul Eluard, who accompanied him had to introduce him to this beautiful sad woman. She talked Spanish fluently, so Picasso was even more fascinated. Their relationship lasted nearly nine years.

Related Topics:
1936 - Paris - Self mutilation - Paul Eluard - Spanish

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Dora Maar became the rival of blonde Marie-Thérèse Walter who had given a daughter named Maya to Picasso. Picasso often painted beautiful sad Dora (she suffered for she was sterile), he called her his "private muse".

Related Topics:
Marie-Thérèse Walter - Muse

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Dora Maar kept his paintings for herself until her death in 1997. They were souvenirs for their extraordinary love affair which made her famous forever. For him she was the "Woman in tears" in many aspects. She suffered from his moods during their love affair. Also she hated the idea that in 1943 he had found a new lover: the Catalan Françoise Gilot. Picasso and Paul Elouard sent Dora to their friend, the psychiatrist Jacques Lacan, who treated her with psychoanalysis. In Paris, still occupied by the Germans, Picasso left her as a good-bye gift in April 1944 a drawing of 1915 representing Max Jacob his close friend who had just died in the transit camp of Drancy after his arrest by the Nazis. He also left her some still lives and a house at Ménerbes in the Provence.

Related Topics:
1997 - 1943 - Catalan - Françoise Gilot - Psychoanalysis - Max Jacob - Drancy - Nazis - Still lives - Provence

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